So you’ve taken on board the fact that innovation is a skill that can be learned. You’re scouting around for diverse ideas from as many sections of the community as possible, and you’ve come up with your own killer questions to help draw those creative ideas.
Questions such as:
- What would I have to do to my service/product to be able to charge 10 times what I currently charge?
- How would Kylie Minogue go about promoting my product?
- How would my product work if there was zero gravity?
- Without the ability to speak, how could I promote my product?
Sure, they might sound a bit ‘out there’ but when it comes to innovation, it’s all about having the guts to take that scary journey out onto that lonely limb – and forging a brand new path!
It’s what the great innovators do. And sure, they fail on occasion. But when it works, the results can be phenomenal.
The best ideas usually come from the bottom of the barrel
When you, and any focus group, are pitching around for creative ideas after debating your killer questions, do you have any idea when the majority of those light bulb moments actually happen?
Okay, the subtitle gave it away. But yes, the most innovative ideas really do happen when you think you’ve everything has already been covered – after all the usual suspects have been tossed into the pile, and all that’s left is pure, untapped potential.
It honestly comes after those killer questions have literally forced your brain into an area it wouldn’t normally go. Making you challenge everything you’ve ever believed about your product or service, and thought ‘what if.’ That’s the point when innovation strikes.
If you only take one thing away from this blog, let it be this:
- Innovation comes from flipping convention on its head
- Innovation comes from challenging the status quo
- Innovation comes from getting out of the assumption rut
Yeah, yeah – that’s three things, but let’s not split hairs.
Once you let go of many of the biases, prejudices and conventions that you’ve had built into you over the years – and we all have them – that’s when you truly can free your mind and allow innovation to shine its brilliant light.
Remember, you might NOT be the best representative of your target customer. And in many cases you need to look elsewhere to gain that vital outside influence. When it comes to small business marketing, use every asset you’ve got. And never make the mistake of dismissing anyone’s input.
Because it just might be the creativity needed to spark that genuinely innovative idea.
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